Too Much Stock in the Mississippi Schools? SEC Power Rankings, Week 7

The Saturday I dubbed as ‘SEC West Saturday’ failed to disappoint, especially if you’re a resident of Mississippi, where all good things are supposed to go to die. The home teams held serve in the West, and only an incredibly irrelevant Tennessee/Florida game kept the home teams from pulling a conference-wide sweep.

Are the pollsters giving the two Mississippi schools too much credit for their wins over Texas A&M and Alabama, though? A&M was playing with the remarkable boost that a nationally-televised dismantling of South Carolina should rightfully provide, but nobody adjusted when we realized the Cocks weren’t that good (that’s what she said). Furthermore, Mississippi State’s big win over LSU was invalidated on the Plains by an Auburn team who we all forgot about in September. As you will see, this is evidenced in the following rankings:

1) Auburn: Mollywhopping of the week against a probably-not-very-good LSU team vaults the Suburban Opelika Tigers to #1 this week. Over 250 yards passing AND rushing will do that. Nick Marshall still may not be a great passer, but an unstoppable running game makes throwing to D’Haquille Williams and Sammie Coates pretty easy. They…they may actually be a problem. We’ll know more when they get back from Starkville this Saturday.

2) Ole Miss: Yeah, I’m giving a lot more credence to a win over Alabama than MSU over aTm. They may legitimately have the best D-line (hell, maybe the best D) in the country, and that can overcome Bad Dr. Bo. You know, until they lose at Texas A&M this weekend and throw everything right back into the fiery depths of chaos.

3) Alabama: The upshot of losing to Ole Miss? It’s one of those games where you realize that almost EVERYTHING has to go right to beat Alabama, and that is still the biggest feather in the Tide’s cap.

4) Mississippi State: Third in the country, fourth in the SEC. It reminds me of when a young Kobe Bryant was an All-Star starter yet still the Lakers’ sixth man. Except Mississippi State ain’t Kobe, I don’t think. If you’re still reading, yes I’m expecting a letdown in Starkvegas with Gameday and Auburn coming to town on Saturday.

5) Georgia: Dawgs on top (five). Hopefully we can push them back into the top 3 after a win at Missouri this week (seriously, October SEC is a beautiful thing).

6) Texas A&M: Hoping we can put the ‘Kenny Hill for Heisman’ talk to rest, but more than likely the echoes become louder when he throws for 400 yards against Ole Miss and further confuses the hell out of me this week.

7) Arkansas: Arkansas? Why not?

8) Missouri: Probably the only other SEC East team worth ranking, and I think I’m just boosting them because Georgia visits them this week. And they match up with Georgia somewhat scarily well.

9) LSU: They play in the West, so they get the nod over everyone else. Impressive when you lose by 34 to a division rival. #InLesWeTrust

10) Florida?: I am just throwing darts at this point, man. New quarterback wins you a game, then subsequently gets arrested. I’m going to let the legal system do its thing, but YOU’RE AN SEC QUARTERBACK COMING OFF A WIN, THE GIRLS SHOULD COME TO YOU! Ugh.

11) Kentucky: Go home, SEC East, you’re drunk.

12) Tennessee: Your bellcow gets 10 carries, your quarterback has a QBR for the game of 16.3 on 39 attempts. Yeah, you deserved to lose this one, Tennessee.

13) South Carolina: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Whew, that felt good.

46) Vanderbilt: Vaulting them back into the top 50 in a 14-team league this week, because they covered against Georgia and I want to boost the Dawgs’ strength of schedule.